A Father's Pride
by Euonym
Summary: Oneshot. Harry thinking back about his daughter. There's not much more to summarize, but read it. I think it's pretty good.


A/N:So, I was working on Fated Chance, and trying to think of how I wanted Ginny to be.(Toanybody who is reading this and also reads FC,'yes' won, by the way.) There's so many ways I couldgo with her personality, I can't use all of them in the story. Hence this one shot. The Ginny Weasley in this (although she is never mentioned by name, and the story is, in honesty, purely about Harry and his daughter) is one of the Ginny Weasleys that I concidered... and possibly discarded, but you'll never know until you read FC, rigth? ;)

Disclaimer: Harry Potter's not mine. His daughter, however, is. So ha!

A Father's Pride

She was always a daddy's girl. From the day she was born and all throughout her life. She was _my_ girl, and nothing can ever change that.

I loved her mother, but not enough to marry her. My daughter's conception was just a drunken mistake. The best mistake of my life, undoubtedly, but a mistake none the less. Her mother disappeared that night. I didn't hear from her again until the morning I woke up to find a crying basket on my porch.

She was beautiful, my little girl. Her hair was like her mother's, her face belonged to her grandmother, and her eyes. Her eyes were mine. That day I was more proud than I had ever been before. I can still remember it as if it were yesterday. She opened her eyes and I knew. I _knew_ she was mine, and I loved her more than anything else. I held her in my arms and immediately she stopped crying. I've never been more awed by anything. My baby. She felt so right in my arms.

I did my best to shield her from the press, but a hero's child draws more attention than what's healthy. She grew up with reporters, but I don't think she minded. If she did, she never complained. She was wonderful. Only my girl could have survived the horrors of the media. Only my girl could have grown up with interviews and seeing her face on tabloids and walk away unscathed.

I used to look at her and wonder how I had raised such a perfect girl. I didn't know how I could have possibly created such an angel. She was honest and pure. She loved life and always found time to laugh. I would stare at my little girl with pride. She was abetter person than I.

I told her so when she was eleven. We were getting ready to leave to the train station. I watched as she pushed a lock of hair behind her ear and stared at her trunk of school things. I told her, and she left her trunk and hugged me.

"I love you, Daddy," she whispered. That was all she said. It wasn't related to what I told her at all, but that didn't matter. It was all I needed to hear. My heart lifted and I drove her to the station. "Don't cry for me, Daddy," she said, knowing me far better than most girls know their dad, "and don't worry. I'll be fine, and I'm coming home for Christmas." She kissed my cheek and walked onto the train that was taking her away from me.

I wept that night, and I'm not afraid to admit it. She was growing up. I didn't realize it when she said her first word, took her first step, rode a broomstick for the first time, or even when she started primary school. But then I knew. She was away from me for the first time in her life, and I was forced to admit that my girl was leaving me. I believe that's the worst part in any father's life, the realization that they would have to set their child free. I didn't want it to be true, but knew there was nothing I could do about it. That was the day I truly understood what it's like to be helpless.

She came back, of course, full of tales of classes, professors, and friends. It stung a bit. Up until then, I had been the only one she considered a 'friend', even if I was her dad. My baby was independent now, and I couldn't help but feel like she didn't need me anymore. It was foolish to think so, and I know that. She'd always need me in some way, even if she needed me less than before. It took me a while to realize that, though (to be precise, it took me until I saw her climbing on the train with the teddy bear I had given her for her fourth birthday tucked beneath her arm to figure it out.)

And so time went by. My little girl grew into a young woman. She was beautiful, and she reminded me of her mother more and more each day. She began to date, and I lost a little more of her. The night after I met her first boyfriend I stayed up all night, staring at the fire and reliving her childhood. She came downstairs around seven to see me staring at the dying embers. Without a word she curled up beneath my arm and rested her head agains my chest. I watched her, remembering how she had done that as a child.

"You're growing up," I murmured, stroking her hair.

"But not growing different. I still love you, Daddy."

I hugged her, feeling almost ready to cry. "One day you'll leave me."

"Never. You'll always have me, Daddy, and nothing, not moving out, not marriage, will make me leave you."

How had I raised someone so perfect? It wasn't the first time I had wondered it, and it wouldn't be the last. I wondered it then, clinging on to her, trying not to let her slip away.

"Daddy? Will you make me pancakes?"

Her graduation was amazing. She was the highest in her class. I'm not sure how much pride one can feel before bursting, but I'm pretty sure that I almost reached the limit on that day. She had been dating a wonderful man that I fully approved of for the last year and a half, she could get any job she wanted, and she was still going to stay with me for at least another year. I didn't care that that year would pass more quickly than the last seventeen. All that mattered was that my baby had succeeded.

I wasn't too surprised when she decided to follow my footsteps and become an Auror. Worried? Oh yes, I was worried. I had witnessed the danger of that department, but I knew she could handle herself. I pushed my father's worry out of my mind and wished her luck, swearing I would put in a good word for her and help her study.

Does pride ever cease? Will a father ever stop feeling pride for his child's accomplishments? I don't think so. Not a day went by that she didn't make me proud. She graduated the three years of training a year early, and got engaged on the same day. The man was the one she had been dating since school, and I had no reason to feel resentful, but I couldn't help it. He brought about the day I had been dreading since I first saw her. He was going to take her away from me for good. Of course I was happy for her, I could tell she loved him, but still, she was the girl I had raised, and now she was finally ready to fly from the nest.

The wedding was beautiful. Even the long walk to the altar, though it seemed so short, was beautiful. She was on my arm, beautiful in white, shaking slightly. I gave her away. I gave my baby away. She wouldn't be down in the dining room, cooking me breakfast when I woke up anymore. I wouldn't see her sitting at the fire place, curled up with a book and hot cocoa anymore. I'd have an empty house. I'd be all alone, my daughter half a town away. It seemed unreal, although I knew it was the truth. I cried again that night. Happiness and sadness and loss all at once. My little girl wasn't a little girl anymore. She had a family of her own.

That family grew larger not two years afterward. Twins. I was a grandfather twice over. Wonder filled my heart when I glanced at my grandchildren, lying purple on a hospital bed with their mother. A little boy and girl. My baby had babies. Such a moment is more magical than anything I learned as a student. Such a moment takes your breath away, and leaves you motionless, staring at the wonder before you. Oh yes. A wonder. A beautiful, stunning, amazing wonder. My grandchildren.

They were at my house every day while their parents were at work. I couldn't help but spoil those two. Often my daughter would ask how I could have possibly raised her without one well earned treat, yet turn around and spoil the kids SHE had to raise. I would reply that I trusted her to raise them the same way she had been raised. It wasn't much of an answer, I know, but it was the truth.

She only had eight years with her children. She was twenty-nine when it happened. Her group of Aurors had been assigned to stop a group of smugglers late on the night of March 14th. That was the worst day of my life. She dropped the twins off with me (her husband was in a business meeting half a continent away) and left to do her job. Three hours later, a face appeared in my fire. That face told me that my daughter, my precious little girl, had been killed.

I don't expect anyone reading this to know the complete anguish I felt at that moment. My heart had been ripped from my chest, and I stood in my living room, sobbing bitter tears. She was not yet thirty. Killed, in the dawn of life, by some scum not worthy of this earth. I left the living room, the head still looking at me worriedly, and went to lay down with my grandchildren. I wondered if they would ever really remember their mother.

At the funeral I spoke not a word. Somehow, her mother was there. I suppose her brother, who loved my girl almost as much as I did, had informed her. I glanced at her once and felt more anger than I had ever felt before. I was outraged that the one time she ever saw her daughter was the day of her funeral. I wanted so much to go up to her and shove pictures of her child under her nose, telling her how much she had missed, but I couldn't. Not on the day I would say goodbye to my girl.

The service was short; most people were too shocked to say more than a few words. I could only cry. After the minister said his final words, I walked up to her open coffin and looked at her for the last time. My baby, Lillian Ginevra Potter.

* * *

A/N: Ok, that's the end. It's a bit morbid, I guess, but hey. When you have writer's block you take what you can get, right? 


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